The Method of Madness

In the job-strapped, overly-stressed, post-Recession climate it seems most people have forgotten the basics of etiquette. In this digital age, where it is becoming more common to type than talk, the impetus to have a strong grasp of the fundamentals of writing has never been more appropriate.

Not-so shockingly, it seems this has passed through the minds of most professionals.

Daily, I receive emails that appear as if they were written by a retarded Middle-school student with a bad case of fibromyalgia. Seriously. From missing subject lines, to no salutation, to butchered English and poor formatting, these people (who range from recruiters to Executive level), should their inability to create a competent piece of prose be exposed, would more than likely be expelled from their jobs.

I work with HR frequently, and most commonly with recruiters. Yes, the same recruiters who staunchly declare that a mere one typo will get an applicant disqualified from consideration. I say now: check yourselves. I’ve yet to meet a recruiter who was the paragon of English grammar, and if you’re disqualifying applicants based on their linguistic crimes that makes you A HYPOCRITE.

There are numerous online resources that you can tap with a quick click of that ‘Google’ button to get grammar advice. It is ludicrous to say, “I don’t have time” because you disrespect not only yourself, but your candidate/vendor/whomever that you’re penning your email to. You look like a fool, and the person on the other end will definitely feel like you didn’t want to spend the time necessary to craft an appropriate letter. Further, in the case of the corporate recruiter, you damage your company’s brand. Who wants to work for a company whose employees don’t have a mastery of basic English writing skills? Not me, sir.

Really, though, the worst of it is that you look incredibly lazy. Spellcheck, automated emails, all of the tools in our technology tool belt do quite well at exposing these slothful sods. If you send out a poorly-worded email, that means you’ve ignored the red and green swiggles Microsoft uses to alert us to errors. Incorrect automated emails once again means you didn’t take the time to even look at what you’re writing. Do people seriously not understand that writing, in essence, is the manual process of transcribing what are conscious thoughts in your brain? In other words, your writing is an extension of yourself, and thereby a reflection of who you are.

You’d better check the mirror.

This post was actually inspired by a good Twitter friend and fellow Jersian, Doug Kerken (@DKerken). Basically, he had tweeted some non-HR, non-SEO, essentially non-work stuff and then sent out another tweet semi-apologizing for the non-work content.

I say… bullshit.

Doug really wasn’t particularly sorry in the true sense of the word for tweeting what he did, but it did get me thinking that people who tweet solely for work are, well… boring.

The whole essence of social media is to expose yourself to the world, to the end of being authentic. Obviously, you’re free to select what parts of yourself come out online. However, my contention is that if the exposé of yourself is single-faceted, you’re only establishing your authenticity in one way. In many cases, people use Twitter to establish their expertise and themselves as a “rockstar” on one particular topic. But is that all you are?

That’s what happened to me when I started my previous blog, jaHRd. I wanted to write, tweet, and talk only about HR-related information. It got old within about a month, and I started to stagnate. Worse yet, I felt like I wasn’t being myself when I was writing. Writing to only one crowd and field felt restrictive, and in my desire to be “professional,” I wasn’t selling the whole package that is Jonathan Hyland. So I scrapped jaHRd, started sharing more than just what I knew about HR with my Twitter pals, and created The Method of Madness. And it has worked out beautifully.

I now have more Twitter followers, and I’ve connected in better, deeper ways with many of them. Some examples:

• When I tweeted about my XBOX 360 breaking, I discovered Sarah White (@ImSoCorporate) plays 360 too.
• Ash (@TMFproject) and I have shared pictures back and forth of rather delicious eats.
• Brian (@Preferredvendor) enjoys BioShock as much as I do.

But most importantly, being myself has exposed me online to people who simply wouldn’t have given a hoot about Jonathan Hyland if all I did was talk about HR. So I encourage you, if you’re only talking about work on Twitter: talk about you. You can still come off as that “rockstar” in your industry, but I think you’ll find some amazing people, and in turn, amazing ideas, when you share just a little bit more.